


Growing Things

by KerriLovegood



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 00:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KerriLovegood/pseuds/KerriLovegood
Summary: A short reunion between Hunk and Shay in season 4, episode 5. Hunk teaches her about plants, and she delights in freedom.





	Growing Things

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on tumblr a while back, but wanted to start posting more of my writing here! <3

Shay has learned new things every day since the liberation of the Balmera. Some things feel the same, almost tedious, but not having to care for their home by the point of a gun makes all the difference.

She still finds herself looking over her shoulder or waking up at night, expecting to see the impersonal armor of a Galra foot soldier, its eyes unseen but piercing. Every day she thinks she will wake up and find that this is all a dream, but she knows deep down that the sunrise was not something she could have ever imagined.

Neither was he. 

Hunk was kind in a way many of her people had not been able to afford to be, not in centuries. And he was more brave than he realized. Hunk was foreign, but she could still feel the pulse of his emotions in a way -- he wore them proud enough.

Every word she heard of Voltron made her heart race as she imagined everyone everywhere - on worlds she could not ever imagine - feeling for the first time the freedom that she herself was still learning. It was hardly a debate so much as a universal raising of hands to join Voltron’s Coalition. The Balmerans knew who they were and what they stood for.

She was waiting for him when his ship landed, and his eyes were scanning the crowd for her as well. His face lit up, warm brown eyes widening slightly when they met hers. He raised one of his arms and waved it back and forth, and she found herself repeating the gesture. 

It was not until he was right in front of her with a flustered “Uh, hi, Shay!” that she realized he was holding something. He was glancing at her feet, behind her, anywhere but at her face as his own seemed to be turning an alarming shade of red. Just as she began to wonder if he was alright, he shoved his arm out awkwardly, the other shooting up to scratch the back of his neck as he laughed nervously. In his outstretched hand were a cluster of thin, spindly things that branched out like open palms into bursts of color.

She stared at them for a moment in awe and confusion, reaching out to touch the tip of one of them. It was alarmingly thin, yet soft.

“I don’t know what’s, you know, Balmeran custom, or anything - probably should have looked into that -  but...they’re for you.”

Turning the little lip of the thing over in her fingers, it snapped off from the base and wafted to the ground. “They’re so...flimsy.” His shoulders sagged slightly, but she looked up at him and grinned. “What  _ are _ they?”

“Oh!” He said, jumping slightly. His expression softened. “They’re called flowers. Plants. They grow from the ground, sort of like how crystals do here, but they’re an organic material.”

“So they’re alive?” Shay breathed, looking down at them again.

“Yes! Well...these ones aren’t, because I picked them...I’ll bring you potted ones next time! I’ve been growing some, now that we’ve got some fertilizer from Kaltenecker -- another long story! - But anyway, I could bring you some still potted, and you can grow them yourself, if you want to.”

“I would love to, Hunk,” she said gently. “Can you teach me?”

“Yes! Gardening - that’s what we call it - like cooking, is an art of precision and feeling. Every flower has their own needs, and - “

“Are there a lot of these flowers, then, on your planet?”

“So many, Shay,” he sighed, and he looked far away for a moment, as though dreaming while awake. “More than I could ever name.”

She reached out, slowly (intimacy was one of the things she was still learning) and put her hand on top of his, careful not to crush the flowers, they were so delicate. Looking up at him, she smiled, and saw him turn that bright red again. Now, it seemed that it was not a bad thing at all.

“But...” his voice was so quiet she could barely hear it. “I hope you like these ones, anyway.”

“I love them,” she said, eyeing again the popping oranges and pinks that now seemed to sprout from the meeting of their hands. 

“It’s like you brought the sunrise back to me.”


End file.
